“My Sheep” is Christ’s
Powerful Term for Believers
When you think about it Jesus comes as the Lamb, He calls His Church His flock, He calls Himself the True and Good Shepherd, and He calls those who lead His Church in His stead: shepherds (that is the meaning of the Greek word poimen), and it is usually translated pastor.
There is only one designation of Christ that fills the New Testament. We are His sons and daughters, and His disciples and servants, but the most integrated term, into the fabric of the early church, was we are sheep, Christ is our Shepherd, and those who guard Christ’s flock are shepherding, pastors.
Jesus calls us as believers more by one term in the Gospels “My Sheep” than any other term among those found outside the Gospels. My sheep is His description of us.
Why does God
Call us His sheep?
It may be because sheep are the most helpless creatures known in the world of zoology. They always lose their way. In the amazing aggregation of entertainment and instruction that modern man calls the circus, we have seen almost every known animal perform, but we have never seen a trained sheep.
A dog or cat, all the farm animals, and everything that can be caught in traps may be taught to perform for the amusement of man with the apparent exception of the sheep.
Perhaps the Lord God, considering the utter helplessness of the human family, just shook His head and said, “We will call them sheep.”
What Jesus Sees in
Us His Sheep
1. As Sheep: We Need His Constant Guidance.
Sheep are UTTERLY HELPLESS and cannot find their way without a guide…. Though there be pasture within easy reach, the sheep is apparently incapable of finding it for itself. It must have a guide. So God, looking at stupid, lost humanity, said, “All they like sheep have gone astray.”
2. As Sheep: We Need His Constant Cleansing.
Sheep are among the dirtiest animals associated with man. The natural tendency of wool in its raw and wild state is to pick up any defilement with which it comes into contact.